Strip roll positioning mechanism



May 6, 1969 w. BACHMAN STRIP ROLL POSITIONING MECHANISM Filed Dec. 12, 1966 INVENTOR. WILLIAM BACHMAN NEYS V AT TOR May 6, 1969 w. BACHMAN STRIP ROLL POSITIONING MECHANISM Sheet Filed Dec. 12, 1966 INVENTOR. WILLIAM BACHMAN BY M mg,

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ATTORNEYS United States Patent 3,442,546 STRIP ROLL POSITIONING MECHANISM William Bachman, 4824 Fulton St., San Francisco, Calif. 94121 Filed Dec. 12, 1966, Ser. No. 601,197 Int. Cl. B66c 1/54, N60

US. Cl. 29467 6 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE This invention relates to lifting mechanisms, and more particularly to a lifting and centering mechanism for rolls of coiled strip metal such as are used in supplying stamping machines or other sheet metal manufacturing appartus.

In the manufacture of articles from sheet metal strip, a problem exists in properly feeding the metal strip to the manufacturing machine. A device capable of achieving such a feed with a maximum of safety and accuracy is described in my copending application Ser. No. 601,045, filed Dec. 12, 1966, entitled Synchronized Coil Unwinder and Rewinder. This application discloses a turntable with an automatic speed control, and it is inherent in the use of such a table that the mechanism will not operate properly unless the roll of coiled strip is properly centered on the turntable so as to produce a minimum of wobble.

It is therefore the object of this invention to provide a combined lifting and centering mechanism for coiled strip which will enable this extremely heavy and often quite limp coiled strip to be easily lifted without falling apart, to be handled with its axis vertical, and to be accurately positioned in an exact coaxial position on a turntable such as that described in my aforesaid copending application.

It is another object of this invention to provide a lifting device capable of gently handling even very delicate coils of thin, easily bent or abraded strip.

It is a further object of this invention to provide a mechanism of the type described which can be easily handled by a single operator.

These and other objects of the invention will become apparent from the following specification, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIGS. 1A through 1E are perspective views of the device of this invention illustrating the sequential steps in its operation;

FIGS. 2A and 2B are fragmentary plan views of the device of this invention illustrating two successive steps in its operation;

FIG. 3 is a vertical section near the axis of the device;

FIG. 4 is a detail view illustrating the manner in which the transition from the step of FIG. 2A to the step of FIG. 2B is accomplished; and

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of the supporting bar which supports the strip coil.

Basically, the device consists of a lifting device which can be inserted into the center of a coil of strip metal, assembled with a supporting bar which can be adjusted into a precise predetermined alignment with the coil of strip, and then attached to a crane or similar device for the transfer of the strip coil and its precisely positioned deposit at a place of use, the supporting bar being so precisely positioned that it is capable of cooperating with fixed guides at the place of use to position the strip coil exactly without the necessity of handling the strip coil itself.

Referring first to FIG. 3, the device of the invention is generally shown at 10 as it would appear in conjunction with a strip using a device such as the variable speed turntable 'of my aforesaid copending application. In FIG. 3, the strip coil is designated by the numeral 12. The coil 12 rests on a supporting bar 14 which is slidably positioned (from right to left in FIG. 3) in a hollow guide block 16 fixedly attached to a screw threaded lifting rod 18. The left-to-right movement (in FIG. 3) of the supporting bar 14 is limited by a stop 20 which engages the wall of the hollow guide block 16.

A collar 22 is slidably fitted onto lifting rod 18, and a threaded wing nut 24 with handlelike wings 26 is threaded onto the rod 18 above the collar 22. The collar 22 is pr0- vided with three ears 28 in each of which a centering arm 30 is pivotally mounted. The centering arms 30 carry rollers 32 at their outer ends so that the device 10 can be moved up and down within the coil. 12 in a frictionless manner by causing the rollers 32 to roll on the innermost convolution of the strip coil 12.

A circular spreading disc 34 is threaded onto the rod 18 below the collar 22. The spreading disc 34 is provided with handles 36 which enable it to be moved up and down along the rod 18 on its threads.

The supporting bar 14, as best illustrated in FIG. 5, may consist of any structure designed in such a manner as to provide optimum strength against longitudinal bending under the weight of the coiled strip (which may weigh thousands of pounds), but having the least possible weight so that it can be conveniently handled by a single operator.

The operation of the device is as follows: the coiled strip 12 is normally stored on blocks 44. When it is desired to remove the coiled strip 12 from storage and to position it on a variable speed turntable or other utilizing device, the ring 46 formed integrally at the top of rod 18 is hooked to a crane hook 48, and the device 10, except for the supporting bar 14, is lowered into the central opening of the coil 12, as best shown in FIG. 1A.

It will be understood that at the time the step of FIG. 1A is undertaken, the relative positions of the collar 22 and of the spreading disc 34 have been so adjusted that the diameter of the circle defined by the three rollers 32 is sufliciently less than the inside diameter of the coil 12 to permit the device 10 to be lowered into the coil 12 without danger of hitting and damaging the innermost convolution of strip 12.

When the device 10 has been lowered sufficiently that the hollow guide block 16 is below the coil 12 but the rollers 32 are still within it, the crane is stopped and the supporting bar 14 is inserted through the opening in the hollow guide block 16 as best shown in FIG. 1B until the stop 20 hits the block 16 and prevents the bar 14 from going any further. The insertion of bar 14 into block 16 is easy because at this point, the block 16 is sufiiciently below the coil 12 that the bar 14 does not rub against the coil 12 during insertion.

When the bar 14 has been fully inserted into the block 16, the handles 26 of the wing nut 24 are rotated in a direction such as to cause the wing nut 24 to descend on rod 18. This causes the arms 30 to pivot in the ears 28 under the effect of spreading disc 34 (which remains stationary during this operation). The tightening of wing nut 24 is continued until all the rollers 32 engage the innermost convolution of coil 12. Since bar .14 is not in engagement with coil 12 at this time, any misalignment between device 10 and coil 12 is readily corrected without strain on either coil or lifting device during this operation. The preferred position of the rollers 32 at the beginning of the above-described operation is best shown in FIG. 2A, whereas their position at the end of the operation is best shown in FIG. 2B.

When the rollers 32 have been brought into contact with the innermost convolution of coil 12, the crane hook 48 is raised, and the device is pulled into supporting engagement with the coil 12. During this raising movement, the rollers 32 roll on the innermost convolution of coil 12 and thus permit the raising of the device 10 without damaging the strip.

It will be readily seen that since the rollers 32 hold the device 10 in coaxial alignment with the coil 12, and since the stop 20 assures an accurate positioning of the supporting bar 14 with respect to the device 10, the supporting bar 14 is in a predeterminable precise alignment with the coil 12 when the device 10 is lifted up as shown in FIG. 1D and the weight of the coil 12 comes to rest on the supporting bar 14. It will therefore be appreciated that when the bar 14 is fitted into some kind of guide means such as the groove in a turntable 50 (FIG. 3), the coil 12 will be accurately positioned in coaxial relationship to the turntable 50. With the weight of the coil 12 now resting on the turntable 50 (FIG. 1B) the hook 48 may now be detached from the eye 46, and the coil strip is ready for use.

In order to rapidly accommodate coils of different internal diameter and dififerent strip width in the most efficient manner, it will be noted that, as shown in FIG. 4, the spreading disc 34 may be moved up and down by means of its handles 36 to adjust the initial position of the legs 30 as indicated in FIG. 4 by the solid line and dotted line positions; or to move the entire leg mechanism up and down on rod 18 by moving both the wing nut 24 and the spreading disc 34 in the same direction.

Also, as readily appears from FIG. 4, the bar 14 is preferably of a somewhat smaller cross section than the inner cross section of block 16 so as to facilitate its insertion in block 16.

Since the rod 18 and its associated mechanism are left in place while the coil 12 is being unwound on the turntable, the guide block 16 cooperates with the depressed portion 54 of the groove 52 in turntable 50 to act like a center column which holds the coil 12 in position on the turntable 50 until its innermost convolution is unwound.

It will be seen that the present invention provides a safe and effective lifting and centering mechanism with which even very heavy strip coils can be easily and accurately handled. Obviously, the invention can be carried out in numerous different embodiments, of which the embodiment shown and described is merely illustrative.

I claim:

1. A lifting and centering device for metal strip coils, comprising:

an elongated rod member having means adjacent one end thereof adapted to be engaged by a lifting means;

guide block means mounted adjacent the opposite end of said rod member; said guide block means having an aperture extending generally perpendicularly to said rod member;

continuous supporting bar means for supporting said coils adapted to cooperate with guide means on an apparatus on which said coils are to be positioned so as to assume a predetermined position with respect to said apparatus when deposited thereon;

means for positioning said supporting bar means on said guide block means so that said supporting bar means extend on both sides of said coils supported thereby in a predetermined position with respect to said guide block, and

expandable means secured to said rod member above said guide block means and arranged to engage said coils upon expansion to thereby center said liftable means.

2. The device of claim 1, in which said liftable member includes a rod adapted to be hooked to a crane and being fixedly mounted at its lower end to a guide block adapted to receive said supporting bar in sliding relationship.

3. The device of claim 1, in which said supporting bar includes a stop means cooperable with said guide block to stop movement of said supporting bar with respect to said guide block when said supporting bar reaches a predetermined position with respect to said guide block.

4. The device of claim 1, in which said expandable means include at least three arms pivoted on a collar axially slidable on said liftable member, means for sliding said collar along said liftable member, and spreading disc means for expanding the circle defined by the tips of said arms as said collar is slid along said liftable means.

5. The device of claim 4, in which said arms are rollertipped.

6. The device of claim 4, in which said spreading disc means are adjustable along said liftable member to vary the initial position of said arms.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 259,214 6/ 1882 Roberts 29467 268,130 11/1882 Roberts 29467 2,583,498 1/1952 Sorbel 29486.24

EVON C. BLUNK, Primary Examiner.

H. C. HORNSBY, Assistant Examiner.

US. Cl. X.R. 

